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Atop of a hill in Tafi
...doesn´t look very welsh Blog time everybody. And we´ll begin with a confession. It is 3 weeks since our last blog and we have sinned oh so many times. The main one being that we´re about a month behind. We´re in Brazil right now and have just spent a week chilling on the beach...so all that follows is what´s happened in between.
So after Mendoza, which for the record we found a wee bit dull....well ok, there was nothing wrong with the place, but it really wasn´t anything to write home about....so we headed to Tafi de Valle, which does absolutely sound like somewhere in Snowdonia. In Tafi we found that we were the only gringos in town - perfect! A great chance to practice our Spanglish and as a result enjoy the pleasure of seeing a dish arrive at our table which bears no resemblance to what we thought we had ordered. Still at least we understood the waiter who advised us against ordering intestines. Although it could be described as too little too late, coming about 2 hours after Ant had suffered from what could have been the lowest ever recorded episode of altitude sickness, throwing up at a disappointing 1900m above
Pointy cactus
...everyone laughed at me when I took this photo, but I think it´s turned out bloody splendidly sea level. One to remember, red wine plus fag multiplied by rapid ascent equals puking in a bin on a roof terrace for Ant and a good 30 minutes of laughter for Jenny. We haven´t got a hope in La Paz based on that performance.
So after puking at average altitude and Jen nearly adopting a local stray, who´s teats betrayed an irresponsible streak....unmarried teen mum dog (not Jen of course!), we made for Salta. The journey by this stage into northern Argentina was revealing ever changing and absolutely stunningly beautiful landscapes. From Tafi we passed cactus covered mountains - proper big buggers like you see in Westerns, not like the poxy ones in trays that you get in Homebase. All the way, there were condors soaring overhead, looking mean, cool and graceful, rather like us.
It was no surprise then, that we decided to jump off the bus in Cafayate, a pretty town with more vineyards to stagger around. Our initial stay there was meant to be 3 hours, whilst we changed buses, but this became 3 nights as we made friends and found things to do. Our first night was in a hostel, which reminded us
Greedy Jen...
...she´s trying to work out how many empanadas she´d eaten. I´ll let you into a secret, it was at least 10. that communal living doesn´t quite work for us anymore. For some folks they are great and if you are travelling on your tod they´re a godsend as you get a decent priced bed for the night and the opportunity to meet some fellow travellers. However for a couple, a double room usually costs about the same as 2 dorm beds. For us the experience of hostels never quite works. We end up going to bed before everyone else, tiptoeing around and taking care not to wake anyone who´s already in there, whilst the rest of the occupants bumble in in the early hours of the morning, putting the light on and doing that drunken whispering thing. After a fitful night listening to snoring, we then always seem to be the first up, trying to be as quiet as possible so as not to wake our hungover room mates. But all of a sudden everything has zips or is in carrier bags....really loud zips and carrier bags which shout ´wake up everyone. I´m a zip and I´m really high pitched and loud ´or ´I´m a very rattley carrier bag´. So in Cafayate after one night in a dorm we headed to
a more salubrious residence. But being the total hypocrites that we are, we weren´t opposed to going back the next night for a spot of partying....drunkenly keeping the other residents awake till past 3 in the morning. We also booked a tour with the hostel, which saw Jenny describing one of the ´loud bastards´ as such to his face, unbeknown to her (she was explaining why we´d moved out to another gaff). To be fair, he was a bit loud even by day. In fact whilst being a likeable enough chap, you could also say he was a bit odd to...a 7 foot bald Dutchman with an accent that was more Scottish than a Dundee cake. The fact our tour was taking in incredibly surreal Martian landscape made it all the more bonkers to see this bald giant bounding around shouting ´Hoots man I´m from Rotterdam´. In a drunken moment, Ant also rather helpfully translated Robbie Burns into phonetic Flemish....lord knows what consequences will come of that.
And so to Salta. Much like Mendoza it seemed that Salta´s appeal lies mainly in the range of activities available in the high season...which in April it´s not. By a stroke of
luck we bumped into Mike & Leigh from the good ship Navimag and enjoyed a delightful day pottering around, drinking wine and somewhat unexpectedly, watching a bike race. We had no idea what we had stumbled on at first, when we came across lots of people lining the street with distant sirens to be heard, getting closer. Initially we thought that maybe they let the public in on police chases in northern Argentina, to spice things up a bit. But once the first flurry of lycra clad men had whizzed past we took our seats and our glasses and awaited 4 more laps. By lap 5 we were applauding anything that moved; mangy dogs, waiters, old men on rusty bikes wobbling along the pavement - a fine alternative to the steroid dash in France.
From Salta it was another delightful 22 hour bus to Igazu for a long anticipated date with Stephan, our ami who we had been walking with in Patagonia. Being French he was destined to be late for our next rendezvous, but 3 weeks was pushing it! His story was quite amusing as due to work politics nonsense he had been forced to divide his trip
Ant letting Jen down again at Igazu
....always ruining photos with his funny face up, flying back to France to work for 3 weeks, then returning to Argentina. So anyway, we met in Puerto Igazu and the following day made our way to the falls. Disappointing doesn´t say the half of it, I´ve seen more water dribbling off a fat girls forehead. Only kidding....they were bloody amazing. Made all the more enjoyable by the lack of people. Tip: go on a Monday morning in the low season, they turn on the taps just after 8 and it´s jolly bloody worth it.
And with that magnificent landmark we had reached the end of our Argie Bargie adventure. Next stop Brazil....
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Diane
non-member comment
Cafayate
Met you two in Cafayate... your blog posts are fricking hilarious! Am very envious of your continuing travels... I'm back at work, slogging away in NY. Be sure to give me a shout if you're passing through here! Diane